New U.S.-Japan Strife May Loom : Commerce: The Asian nation’s economy has slowed, but maybe not enough to head off problems with its biggest trading partner.

Japan’s economy is wheezing slightly after years of phenomenal expansion, but its export dynamo is still cranking out high-demand items ranging from quality electronics gear to trouble-free cars.

That, in turn, could worsen trade tension with the United States, Japan’s biggest market, which is already aggravated by the perception that Japan failed to carry its weight in the Gulf War.

“You could see a trade-bloc mentality and protectionist mentality developing” in the United States, said Richard L. Staubitz, an economic risk consultant in Tokyo.

The quick end of the war alleviated economic anxiety in Japan and most of its neighbors. Many Asian nations have revised their growth forecasts upward for the year.

While some countries, most notably the Philippines, suffered from spiraling oil prices and reduced foreign exchange remittances from overseas workers during the Persian Gulf crisis, the region largely escaped serious damage.

That is reflected in some of the economic growth-rate projections for the year--6% for Singapore, 7%-plus for South Korea, 6.22% for Taiwan and 9% for Thailand.

“I think Thailand will do a whole lot better than we might have expected,” said Christopher Bruton, a foreign business consultant based in Bangkok.

Even the Philippine government believes that its battered economy could grow up to 4% this year, but it acknowledges that recouping jobs lost in the Middle East will take time.

“Our people must realize that the availability of jobs--50,000 in the next six months, 300,000 in the next five to 10 years--will not occur tomorrow,” said Labor Undersecretary Nieves Confesor.

In Japan, the government forecasts 3.8% growth for the fiscal year that began April 1, although some economists think that that is too high. In each of the previous four years, Japan’s output of goods and services grew at a substantially higher rate.

Analysts say the Gulf crisis, while generating uncertainty about the future, was only a minor element in the slowdown. The Bank of Japan, they say, has been the main culprit.

Japan’s central bank has set high interest rates to end a period of cheap credit that led to dizzying booms in the stock and real estate markets. The stock market plunged last year, and land prices have started to ease.

Yet even with the bank applying the brakes, Japan “will remain the best performer of all major world economies” this year, said Kenneth S. Courtis, senior economist with Deutsche Bank Capital Markets in Tokyo.

“Cruising speed” is how the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan describes the economy’s growth rate.

The end of the Gulf War has provided a psychological boost to Japanese executives, many coming off a bruising year for corporate profits.

A survey of 1,245 corporations by Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the nation’s leading economic newspaper, found that “the end of the Gulf War largely wiped out corporate apprehension over the future course of oil prices, foreign exchange rates and interest rates.”

Richard C. Koo, senior economist at Nomura Research Institute, said that since the war’s end, “quite a few people have indicated they are increasing investment plans.”

But there is concern that U.S.-Japan trade relations face enormous difficulty, partly because many Americans believe that Tokyo’s support for the allies was tepid and vacillating. Some groused that while American soldiers put their lives on the line, Japanese executives were plotting their next economic inroad into the U.S. economy.

Japan contributed nearly $11 billion, but no soldiers, to the allied war effort.

U.S. trade attitudes are “one big factor clouding our forecast” for the Japanese economy, acknowledged Koo.